Too Small To Ignore

Too Small To Ignore- Why the Least of These Matters Most: Dr. Wess Stafford

"I learned in my childhood in Africa that a child may be born in poverty, but poverty is never born in a child. The worst aspects of poverty are not the deplorable outward conditions but rather the erosion and eventual destruction of hope and therefore dreams. When a child gives up hope, dreams are forever shattered. With lost dreams goes the potential and ultimate impact that a child might have had."

"The word community is more than just a gray sociological descriptor. It is a God term, designed by the Creator of children to water their souls and enhance their spirits as they grow. To ignore this is to sow seeds of dysfunction and future trauma. To welcome the young into the center of our lives is to enrich not only them but ourselves as well."

"Americans spend more for garbage bags each year than 90 of the world's 210 countries spend for everything!"

"God's kingdom deserves excellence. It just doesn't need the conquest of anyone except Satan...competition should be our servant, a mere tool to drive us toward excellence."

"An even greater challenge is to receive graciously, especially from the hands of the poor. The Scriptures teach that it is more blessed to give than to receive. In my experience, it is also easier to give than to receive. We in the developed world are generally very awkward about it. If there is one great pearl I have witnessed in my years of ministry among the poor, it is their ability to be truly and joyfully grateful."

"Any response to the needs of the poor certainly involves money somewhere along the line. But it is not the cure-all by any means. Billions have been spent by governments and nonprofit organizations alike to relieve poverty. At the time my family and I just returned to America, President Lyndon Johnson was aggressively pushing a national "War on Poverty." It did some good, but it certainly didn't solve the problem forever. Today, forty years later, one of every six American children still lives below the poverty line.
Worldwide, it is more like one out of overy two. Think about that for a minute. This gobe, with all its resources and efforts at getting organized to meet the need, still fails to provide adequately for almost half of its precious little ones. On the test of caring for the next generations, we're scoring a lowly 54 percent, which wil get you an F at any school."

"Unless there is an intervention of love and hope, these seeds of apathy lead inevitably downward to an eve nlower death sentence called fatalism. The very word stinks of death. It is the bottom- as low as a human being can sink. When the human spirit becomes truly fatalistic, it is almost impossible to retrieve. This is complete and utter poverty, the end of the road."